A Christmas Wish

I normally write a short reflection during Christmas. My reflection this year is on Christmas in the aftermath of the Orissa violence…

A Christmas Wish

- dedicated to all the people of Kandhamal, Orissa, especially to the 8000+ people still living in relief camps, and to all those who live under the shadow of violence, anywhere in the world.

It was almost 12 at night
I tiptoed to where my children lay
Christmas was here, here at last, it was just a few moments away.
The Christmas star was burning bright
and it showed me the way, as I slowly tiptoed, very slowly tiptoed
to where my children lay.

Last year we had a blast,
Christmas had been a merry day
This year we are on a fast, on this beautiful Christmas day

By then I had reached the spot
the spot where they lay,
my children’s grave was bathed in light, in the silvery whey.
The Christmas star looked so bright
as it did that early Christmas morn,
much like the time in Bethlehem, when the little baby Jesus was born.

As in those days, Herod had said,
no baby boy should be alive, kill them all, show no mercy,
all I want is their head.

So it happened 2000 years later, in our very land,
in the land we call our home, they came,
and desecrated it with a sleight of hand
They burnt our places of worship
and set our fields on fire.
Next they came to our home with lathis and burning tyres.

As they looked at my sleeping children, I pleaded
and fell at their bloodied feet. Spare them, my brothers, and take my life, I cried.
but it fell on stone deaf ears.

2008 has been an eventful year for us.
driven out of home, plundered and murdered, were we
but Christmas this year has become, has become very real!
The baby who was born
on that cold Christmas night, grew up to show
that God’s love is for all, yea for all, irrespective of who we were.

Give it, spread it, never withhold it, He said,
more for those who hate you, than for a friend.
As a witness of this love, you I send.

As I knelt down at my children’s graves
I shed a silent tear. Yes, for my little children,
but also for those who shed their innocent blood.
With hearts cold with hatred, and eyes filled with fury,
no rest, no peace they knew
for as they killed my children, they killed a piece of themselves too.

With these thoughts raging in my head,
I wondered, if peace I would ever know,
Must be the same, I thought, for those, who had struck the fatal blow.

As I closed my eye in prayer, His Spirit did I feel
urging me to love them,
for they too needed to heal.
Filled with His Spirit, I shouted into the night,
Lord I have a Christmas wish. Help me to love as you did,
so much, that for us you even died!

- Naveen I. Thomas
Dec 24, 2008